Black Intelligentsia Takes Root on the Web

Henry Louis Gates' newest media venture, The Root, approaches the insightful African American news commentary that once graced the pages of George Curry's Emerge and picks up where his previous academic-centered publication, Africana.com (now AOL Black Voices), left off. Launched in January, the new online daily is a repository of news, blogs and editorials from prominent black writers including Princeton's Melissa Harris-Lacewell, reporting vets such as Time's Jack White, and Web denizens such as Jimi Izrael.

Gates has enlisted former New York Times correspondent Lynette Clemetson to helm the operation. In this edited interview, she talks with the Maynard Institute about this online forum. 

Who do you imagine is the audience for the site?
The Root is a site that is designed for a predominantly African American audience. I say predominantly because I don't think we see our overall appeal limited to just blacks, or just blacks in the U.S. We hope certainly within the African diaspora that we have a reach that makes our content interesting in Africa, in Europe, in the Caribbean and elsewhere.

I just got an e-mail from a young black writer who happened to be in Beijing right now, wanting to write for The Root. I am very excited that she's seen the site and also that she may give us contributions from China. So when we use the term African American, it's a starting point -- it by no means an audience that we see as being exclusive.

How do you think that focus on the diaspora changes coverage and the writers you're attracting versus Black America Web?
Rather than compare it too much to other sites that exist, I'd rather focus on some of the things we're getting. By casting a wide net, we're generating an interest... Rather than starting with, 'Here are people I want to pull in,' by making it open to anyone who wants to submit, then you may get surprises that are really refreshing.

I got a call just the other day from the writer Meri Danquah, who is an immigrant from Ghana, she's been in America since she was a child. She called out of the blue saying that she saw The Root and she needed absolutely to write for The Root. She's working on a novel right now on her experience, her memoirs being an African immigrant in the United States, and she's traveling back to Ghana frequently over the next year to work on her memoir.

She wrote a piece for us that ran a couple weeks ago ... things black Americans say to you when they don't know that you are an immigrant. Then I got a call from her yesterday saying she wanted to write a piece talking about how Ghanaians all stayed up until five in the morning to watch the results of the [Democratic] primary.

People are coming to us in interesting ways and I think that those contributions are enriching to our audience here and elsewhere.

One story that struck me was the piece on the Brazilian ambassador to the United Nations. Brazil has the highest population of Africans in the Americas, but how is that a diaspora story?

Well, that is not. It's a review of an interesting book. We also have a piece on the site today on the presidential succession in Russia that has nothing to do explicitly with black people. And so our issues need not always be explicitly black, just about things we feel our audience either should know about or would be interested in knowing about.

The writer who wrote that, Uzodinma Iweala, is reviewing books for us. Though [ambassador Sergio Vieira de Mello was] Brazilian, the book has nothing to do with his life in Brazil. It has to do with his career as a civil servant that ended up in this high position in Iraq. So it's relevant because the story of his life is illuminating about the United Nations ... The United Nations is something of critical interest to our audience, cast broadly.

It's an interesting choice, not one people would expect when the come to 'a new black Web site.'  How do you think this positions you differently?
If we just talk about the Web, and not blogs... there are a number of really good Web sites pitched to predominantly black audiences. But most of these start from an entertainment base. That's something we don't do on The Root in any explicit form. There are other sites that do that well. If you look at Black Planet or BET.com, Black American Web -- although Black America Web does a good job with news -- there are other sites that deliver that content in a very solid way. It's not something we aspire to do. We feel like there's a hole and a need for this additional content ... about politics, books, art, theater, and trying to offer viewpoints and issues and topics that you don't see on some of the other sites.

Our base is not news in a traditional form. We have no staff reporters. We have no staff writers. We're an all-freelance operation. The part that is unique to The Root is that part that's called 'Views.' Those are the ideas, opinions, analysis or commentary that are being brought to us. The pieces you'll find there are not reported pieces, objective journalism. They're commentary and analysis, so it's where we're allowing people to bring a voice, a tone and a personality to issues that are timely.

What's the editorial process like?
Just like any other publication. We start the week with what's coming up for the week. There are three of us full time on a daily basis: myself, Terence Samuel, deputy editor, and Natalie Hopkinson, who's associate editor. We have a group of writers who write regularly for us, but who also have day jobs. They're freelancers we go to regularly: Melissa Harris-Lacewell; Jack White, who's become a regular writer for us; Sam Fullwood; Marjorie Valbrun. We have two foreign affairs writers: Sundaa Bridgett Jones, who wrote the piece on Russia, is at the Woodrow Wilson center, [and] Spencer Boyer. His pieces that have explicitly black angles, but he's also written pieces about head scarfs for Muslims in Turkey.

Obviously you have a black audience in mind, but how are story decisions made?
There'll be something happening and we go find a writer to write about it. Some, it's the other way around. A writer will pitch a story. The story on a new theater production on the Lower Ninth, that just opened up having to do with Katrina, [the writer] pitched that to us.

The consideration of that piece had nothing to do with whether or not it was explicitly black but because it had to do with a theater production that was in New York. If we were the New York Times we would've run that piece without question. My question about that piece, if we have a broad audience and people around the country, should we be writing about theater productions about people in New York and not on the road yet? The answer to that was that it was an interesting story, it was well-written... the subject matter is something that is of enduring interest to our audience of The Root.

The process is not mysterious at all. Story conferences happen like story conferences happen at daily newspapers. There are many story pitches that we get every day that we can't respond to, or don't have the space and time to get to.

What is your background in news?
I came to this from the New York Times, where I was a reporter for five years, a domestic correspondent. Before that I was at Newsweek magazine for six years both as a national correspondent based in Washington and as a foreign correspondent based in Hong Kong. Prior to that I worked in Hong Kong for Turner Broadcasting ... Before that I started out at Sheraton Broadcasting Networks, which is now called American Urban Radio Networks, which is a black-owned-and-operated radio news syndication operation based in Pittsburgh, where I went to school.

What did you envision for The Root when it came online?
To have the opportunity to not only work on a Web product, but start a Web product and start it with content that is in a directed niche product, offers challenges on every possible level. I want it to be intriguing and readable, to be attractive and successful. But it's very, very much a work in progress.

Do the other editors have Web backgrounds?
Terence Samuel does. He has been a print journalist for years, but in 2005 he left U.S. News & World Report to become director of programming at AOL Black Voices. So he has not only online experience, but online experience in that content space that is for predominantly black audiences.

Natalie Hopkinson, the associate editor, came to us from the Washington Post Outlook section, but she was the liaison to WPNI [Washington Post Newsweek Interactive], which is the online company for the Washington Post. She worked bridging that content for the Web for washingtonpost.com.

What has your interaction with the black blogosphere been like?
I think it's been interesting. We have blogs that we feature on the site. I am always excited when I see someone has commented on our site, whether it be good or bad, because you just want the information to be interesting and conversation-sparking. I think there's a lot we can learn. There's good blogs out there. There's some that I've read before -- I like Blackprof a lot.

And there were other things that I've read -- I've known to look at Bossip from time to time... There are so many choices online for different kinds of content for black readers and non-black readers who are interested in black issues. I think that this space on the Web is going to become more dynamic, interesting and challenging -- look at other sites and see the things people are doing with video, all kinds of interactive media.

Our site right now is more text-driven than driven by multimedia, so I'm always looking at features that other sites have to see what we're doing and what we could be doing better. I think we're good to start with our strengths.

I felt the L.A. Times Web critic panned you for being a little less than Web 2.0.
I didn't take that as a pan. You can either start with a lot of bells and whistles and doing everything poorly, if that's not your expertise, or you can start with something you're doing well.

And I think in terms of our content and our analysis we're definitely delivering something that is [not] available in this way in other places, that I hope that it's delivering something I hope [readers are] responding to and that they like. As we develop and move forward we'll add the things that will make us seem as Webby as we need to be.

How is the ancestry section related to the magazine?
It's definitely separated. It's a tools-based functionality, it's not content-driven in terms of editorial content. The Roots part of the site, the genealogy part of the site is separate from the magazine, and it is exactly what it is, it's a tool. It's part of the mission of the site but it's not considered part of the editorial magazine.

We ran a story about Maya Angelou talking about finding her roots. And a story about a genealogist turning up information about her great-grandmother. That was in the magazine, but it was obviously tied to the mission of ancestor search and genealogy -- that's part of our core mission.

And so where it make sense, of course, there will be stories related to genealogy. It's not that we're jack-knifing stories to have links where they need not be. We ran a story by Edward Ball on the Bush family's slaveholding past, that was based in genealogy research and family history. As we develop we'll do more, but it's not a stepchild in any way. It's an important part of the site.

Related Links
Richard Prince: "The Root" Debuts

Bloggers on The Root
Dallas South: Henry Louis Gates launches 'The Root'
Mark Anthony Neal: Wanted! Smart Negroes
Talking Stuff: "The Root is very much needed"

The Huffington Post: Reader Comments

Contact writer Reggie Royston at rroyston@maynardije.org.

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